Clack: From a distance, hold tight to one another

A woman sits on the sidewalk at the 100 block of East Houston Street in downtown San Antonio. Businesses throughout the city have been shut down as part of efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Photo: Jerry Lara /Staff photographer

Helium is the element of drift. It is the second-lightest element in the universe. It allows balloons, released from our hands, to ascend to the sun, whose Greek god, Helios, inspired its name.

On Wednesday morning in San Antonio, there was no sun, and if there were balloons floating through the air, they wouldn’t have been seen, as the city awoke to its first day of shelter-in-place in a fog.

Not just a metaphorical fog induced by coronavirus and our inability to see clearly ahead, to make out the outlines of a day when we’ll return to normalcy. But a fog thick enough to shroud the city’s skyline and obscure people at a certain distance.

At a certain distance is how we now measure our lives, whether standing in line at the store, working from home or visiting the (few) places we can go when not at home.

At a certain distance is how we bide our time, while hoping the time is soon when the distance will be narrowed.

At a certain distance — social distancing — dictates our lives so our lives will be saved. That we’re becoming more afraid for our lives and the lives of others is as clear as the empty streets and sidewalks of downtown.

I’m a native San Antonian who has lived near or in and worked downtown most of my life. On Wednesday, during the 8 p.m. hour, Alamo Plaza and downtown were darker and less vibrant than any time in my memory.

It was no more alive at 10 a.m. Thursday.

In his brilliant memoir, “Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation,” John Phillip Santos describes Houston Street as a long, dark avenue of ghosts.

Today, that’s not just Houston Street. It’s Broadway, Commerce, Losoya, Navarro, Travis, Alamo Plaza and Travis Park. But even the ghosts were absent.

Walking through these streets Thursday, I felt like a character in one of “The Twilight Zone” episodes — the only person or one of a scattered few who have survived the destruction of the world. The wind blew, and because motorized and human traffic was almost nonexistent, I could hear, as well as see, dry leaves scraping along the street, a Styrofoam cup tumbling down the sidewalk, plastic clinging to a parking meter and a piece of newspaper attach itself to a tree.

Most of the people I’ve seen are the homeless who are sheltering in place where they’ve been living: downtown streets.

COVID-19 reminds us that a pandemic — like any tragedy afflicting a community and a nation — magnifies existing inequities and suffering, making more visible the people we didn’t see or ignored because they were at a certain distance from our view and our conscience.

Whether through homelessness (or being one rent payment away from homelessness), unstable and low-paying jobs, food insecurity, a lack of health insurance and sick paid leave, or the absence of computers and Wi-Fi for children now expected to learn online, we’ve allowed too many people to drift from our attention, moral concern and responsibility.

Among the many challenges, some unprecedented, that we now face because of COVID-19 is aggressively attacking and eliminating these inequities.

COVID-19 also magnifies the infection of loneliness. There are people — many, but not all, of them older — who were recluses before the virus came, and there are people whose only sense of community was found in the churches, synagogues, mosques, and senior and community centers now closed.

One of our greatest daily challenges during these times is remembering and keeping our eyes open for them, not letting them drift away, forgotten, as a prelude to their silent and unacknowledged deaths. We can’t allow the necessity of being physically apart be the reason we don’t stay in touch.

That doesn’t only include strangers and casual acquaintances but also the people we know well and love.

Thursday morning, on my way to Central Market, I drove past the Catholic Worker House, where a long line of the poor and homeless waited to be served breakfast. The line I stood in at Central Market was shorter, faster moving and serenaded by saxophonist Joe Posada.

As I entered the store, Posada was playing Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” When I exited, he was halfway through Hall & Oates’ “One on One.”

Because we now measure time at a certain distance with the hope of flattening the COVID-19 curve, our one-on-one interactions are spaced out, online and virtual.

But in, through and beyond this unprecedented time of separation, we must stay together. We need to stay together.

We hold on tight to the strings of helium balloons when we’re not ready to let them go. Let’s hold on to each other so we don’t drift apart.

Cary Clack, born and raised in San Antonio, is a graduate of St. Gerard High School and St. Mary's University from where he received a B.A. in Political Science.

In 1994 he was given a biweekly column by the San Antonio Express-News. In 1995 he was hired full-time as a reporter and columnist. In 1998 he joined the Editorial Board and in 2000 he became a metro columnist. He left the paper to join Joaquin Castro's first congressional campaign, later serving as Rep. Castro's district director.

He worked in Mayor Ivy Taylor's office as communications director and spent four years with Merced Housing Texas.

In 2017 he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters and is currently editing what will be the first anthology of black Texas writers. The book will be published as part of the Wittliff Collections' book series through Texas A&M University Press.